About Barry
Senior VMware Infrastructure Engineer with 15+ years of hands-on experience in enterprise virtualisation, datacenter architecture and platform modernisation. I specialise in the full VMware suite — VCF, vSphere, NSX-T, vROPS, vRA/vRO, SRM and Stretch Clusters — alongside Cisco UCS, NetApp ONTAP/MetroCluster and Nutanix.
Most of my career has been spent as an independent contractor in highly regulated environments: financial services (JP Morgan Chase, Royal Bank of Scotland) and public sector (Registers of Scotland, NHS). I've contributed to one of the largest VMware estates globally (260,000+ VMs) and delivered multi-site MetroCluster deployments, large-scale UCS rollouts and complex datacenter migrations — all with zero-impact delivery.
Beyond core infrastructure, I bring strong capability in automation (PowerShell, Python, Terraform, CI/CD) and cloud integration (Azure, AWS). I hold current certifications in VMware Cloud Foundation 9, HashiCorp Terraform and Microsoft Azure. I'm security-conscious, experienced with ISO 27001, vulnerability management and patching governance, and comfortable engaging directly with senior stakeholders on strategy, risk and cost.
English
Native or bilingual
German
Basic
Remote only
Primarily works remotely
Experience
- Next Kraftwerke GmbHSenior Cloud EngineerENERGY AND UTILITIESNovember 2024 - February 2026 (1 year and 3 months)Cologne, NW, Germany▸ Operated as the sole internal technical lead — the only permanent employee responsible for managing and directing external consultants through the full Shell Group technical integration.▸ Central contributor to the organisation's VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) migration — driving architecture decisions, SDDC Manager integration, workload placement strategy and deployment validation alongside the platform team.▸ Hands-on VCF build: vSphere cluster configuration, NSX-T overlay network design, VSAN storage policy definition and vRA/vRO automation integration — applying full-stack VMware expertise throughout.▸ Key contributor to ISO 27001 certification — implemented security controls, remediated vulnerabilities and established patching governance across on-premises VMware and cloud environments.▸ Led Azure cloud migration for acquired workloads, aligning platforms with Group security and governance standards.▸ Established platform standards, runbooks and operational documentation across the full estate.
- Publicis SapientSenior DevOps EngineerCONSULTING AND AUDITSJanuary 2023 - October 2024 (1 year and 9 months)Berlin, Germany▸ Designed and built the full Azure infrastructure stack for a new e-commerce platform for a major national supermarket chain, driving the project from inception through to delivery.▸ Designed and implemented an identity and authentication solution for an Azure-based web application, integrating securely with existing enterprise identity providers.▸ Built CI/CD pipelines using Azure DevOps to fully automate application deployments and infrastructure provisioning, eliminating manual release processes.▸ Managed infrastructure as code using Terraform across the full Azure PaaS stack — Web Apps, Function Apps, Logic Apps, Storage Accounts and Key Vaults.
- GovernmentVirtualisation ConsultantPUBLIC SECTORJanuary 2020 - December 2022 (2 years and 11 months)▸ Designed and deployed multi-site Cisco UCS & NetApp MetroCluster infrastructure as a ground-up replacement of the legacy VxBlock estate, delivering significant cost reduction and operational simplification.▸ Implemented VMware Stretch Clusters (VMSC) backed by NetApp MetroCluster, achieving near-zero RPO/RTO and substantially improving platform resilience across geographically separated sites.▸ Executed zero-impact migration of critical government workloads onto Cisco UCS X-Series, coordinating across internal, vendor and network teams to maintain full service continuity throughout.▸ Managed and maintained the Nutanix estate — responsible for cluster health, firmware and software patching, capacity monitoring and performance optimisation across production workloads.▸ Integrated Nutanix monitoring and alerting into the broader infrastructure management platform via API, enabling unified visibility across VMware and Nutanix environments.▸ Delivered Commvault Hyperscale X backup solution including enterprise-grade replication, deduplication and retention policies aligned to public sector data requirements.▸ Played a critical role in all DR test exercises — coordinating failover execution, validating recovery against RPO/RTO commitments and identifying improvements; all exercises completed successfully.▸ Architected and delivered a bespoke in-house infrastructure management platform integrating with vendor APIs across VMware, NetApp and Nutanix stacks — providing unified monitoring, historical reporting, automated decommission candidate identification and self-service VM lifecycle tooling.▸ Engaged regularly with senior stakeholders on infrastructure strategy, risk and cost optimisation.
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Education
- VMware Cloud Foundation 9 Administrator2029VMware Cloud Foundation 9 Administrator
- HashiCorp Terraform Associate2028HashiCorp Terraform Associate
Certifications
- VMware Cloud Foundation 9 Administrator (VCF-9)VMware / Broadcom2026
- HashiCorp Certified Terraform Associate (004)Hashicorp2026